Keira Ash (she/they) is a proud Tłı̨chǫ Dene Indigiqueer from Somba K’e Denendeh (Yellowknife, NWT). Keira grew up playing on the shores of Great Slave Lake, survived the -40 winters under the glow of the northern lights, and she expresses love for her home in all artforms, theatre, dance, and beadwork.

Joel Bernbaum is a theatre artist and journalist. He is a graduate of the Canadian College of Performing Arts and Carleton University, where he completed his Master’s Thesis on Verbatim Theatre’s Relationship to Journalism and the University of Saskatchewan, where he studied how verbatim theatre can be used as a community development process. Joel’s produced plays include Operation Big Rock, My Rabbi (with Kayvon Khoshkam), Home Is a Beautiful Word, Reasonable Doubt (with Yvette Nolan and Lancelot Knight) and Being Here: The Refugee Project (with Michael Shamata). From 2013–2023, he served as Artistic Director of Sum Theatre.

Fabienne Calvert Filteau (they/she) is an acupuncturist of euro-settler ancestry whose first loves were playwriting and poetry. After many years focused on acupuncture, Fabienne is delighted to return to the world of theatre and excited to join a collaborative play-making process. Many thanks to Gwaandak for this opportunity.

Bio & Headshot Incoming

Yvette Nolan (Algonquin) is a playwright, director and dramaturg who makes theatre across Turtle Island. Her works include the play The Unplugging, the dance-opera Bearing, the libretto Shawnadithit, and the verbatim play Reasonable Doubt (with Joel Bernbaum and Lancelot Knight). From 2003–2011, she served as Artistic Director of Native Earth Performing Arts.

Laurel Parry was born in the Northwest Territories and raised in the Yukon on the traditional territories of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council. She writes about lives and places that are remote and crowded at the same time. Laurel’s stories have been published in 5 Minute Lit, JMWW, Riddle Fence, Circumpolar Duet: Singular Plurality, and the Northern Review.

@auntieolo on X and Instagram

Nicole Schafenacker is a writer, interdisciplinary artist and community-based researcher with euro-settler ancestry residing on the traditional territory of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and Ta’an Kwäch’än Council outside of Whitehorse, Yukon. Her creative work explores body memory, intimate geographies, liminal spaces at the threshold of change, and hopeful acts/relationships between humans and place. She creates projects in the North at the intersection of arts, social justice, and environmental stewardship. To this end, she has collaborated with organizations including AdaptationCONNECTS (Oslo), the Dechinta Centre (NWT) and Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (Yukon) to carry out projects including site specific art in wild spaces, digital anthologies, community art installations and more.

Colin Wolf is a Métis performer, theatre maker, and activist from Moh’kins’tsis (Calgary), AB on Treaty 7 Territory. He graduated with a BFA in Dramatic Arts from the University of Lethbridge in 2014, and then spent five years making theatre all over the prairies. Colin co-founded Thumbs Up Good Work Theatre Collective with his sister Caleigh Crow in 2013. Colin felt the call of the North and moved to Whitehorse in October 2019 to serve as Artistic Director at Gwaandak Theatre. He wrote and produced CoyWolf, a story about loss and grief backdropped by a story of land displacement. Colin produced it as Thumbs Up in partnership with the Guild Hall Theatre in Whitehorse, and toured it to four rural communities in 2023.